


Secret Star

by AleksanteriAgitshev



Category: Seihou Bukyou Outlaw Star | Outlaw Star
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:52:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AleksanteriAgitshev/pseuds/AleksanteriAgitshev
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gene and Melfina watch spy and ninja movies while Suzuka provides her expert opinion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secret Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thepsychicclam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepsychicclam/gifts).



Galactic Network Secret Agent Patel battled through the hot-spring water filled express train departing Hagone Hot Springs World while Gene and Melfina watched her ride across Planet Tenrei on screen. It was the fifth, and in Gene's opinion, best, one in the series, and they'd just hit the slow-motion, zero-gravity effect filled fight against Patel's nemesis Smythe and his cyborg body.

“Spies aren't so useful that they deserve as much popular fiction as they do,” Tasogare no Suzuka said, at the open door to Gene's room. She'd waited their patiently, until the jazzy score kicked in and Patel's aquatic mermaid tai-chi style montage rambled on.

“How can you say that? Everyone thinks that secret agents are awesome,” Gene replied, turning around in sudden shock to see her standing there. Melfina remained fixated while Patel fended off Smythe with a pressurized, underwater tea set.

“I have some experience,” Suzuka said, taking one careful step inside the room.

“You were a spy?” Gene asked, his mouth opening into a wide smile and freezing there.

“Not exactly. It's simple. If your opponent is even worth your time, they'll make sure anything you learn is meaningless. Spies can't be trusted, even if they're right.”

“I could be trusted.” Melfina interrupted, but did not take her eyes off of the movie. Smythe brandished a mechanical trident, extending three pointy barbs with the click of a button.

“Yes. But you could also be fooled. And so could I if I trusted you. It is a common problem.” Twilight Suzuka said, smiling at the back of Melfina's head.

Agent Patel hit the emergency release valve, emptying scalding spring water and enemy Agent Smythe out over Tenrei's scenic Sweetheart's Gorge. The Hagone Line train vanished around the mountain's edge.

“Fooled by what?” Gene asked, “Melfina's way harder to deceive than I am.” Not that he knew how her bio-android senses worked. He just assumed they were better, just like Agent Smythe's robot eyeballs.

“Well, that's true.” Suzuka reached up to the top of her forehead, and pulled down, letting two halves of a holographic disguise fall to the floor. Revealing Aisha, smiling wide with her eyes closed. “Bwaha!”

She turned and hopped out of the door, winking at Suzuka who went in the opposite direction, back into the room. Presumably the real one this time, but Gene was too busy with his mouth agape to think about it.

“I just need to assume anyone could be a mole. Half of my orders are for true purposes, half for false. No matter what anyone sees or finds, they must doubt its truth.” Suzuka sweeps her gaze across Gene's floor, delining to hazard taking a seat.

“I knew it wasn't you,” Melfina said absentmindedly, watching Agent Patel wrestle for control over the train, “your density isn't that high.”

“Okay, but spies are a real thing. So why would anyone have them?” Gene was not going to let his dashing cinematic hero down so easily.

“Oh, I wouldn't know. Not for any good reasons.” Suzuka ignored Gene, and pretended to watch the movie.

Melfina imagined herself as Sub-secret Assistant Agent Melfina Khan, soaring across a domed city-space, just behind Agent Patel. She wore a squirrel-suit and ion pack, keeping her aloft over the blinding neon of the metropolis. They'd be aiming for the 138th floor of Symphontek Industries, experimental raygun suite, to confiscate a stolen combination freeze bolt and minimizer which could turn anyone into a small pile of ice cubes. Agent Patel would aim her wrist-mounted ultrasonic blaster at the window, turning into a powder of dust far over the frequency anyone could hear. The two tumbled inside, and ran through the display hall like the crafty ninjas in those other movies Gene liked to watch.

“Maiden,” Patel would say, that being Melfina's codename, “disable the external security system. We're taking the elevator.”

“Yes ma'am!” she whispered excitedly, rushing for the panel by the door. She worked with a blur of tiny spy implements, miniature lasers, and diminutive buzz saws. She'd done a perfect job of shutting everything down, when Agent Patel arrived with the frost-blue colored zapper.

“Good work, Maiden.” Melfina glowed as she received praise from her hero. “Now, why don't we try the Legend of the Twenty Shinobi!”

Melfina blinked as she suddenly realized that Agent Patel was Gene. And the raygun suite was the Outlaw Star.

The dreaded shadow warrior Melfina the Fang stalked the imperial night, ready to do the bidding of her daimyo...

“You said you have some experience with spies, but you don't know what they're really for?” Gene said to Suzuka, on the bridge. Melfina dosed away in Gene's room, having had plenty of excitement with the endless ninja battles. She dreamed of conquering feudal Japan with just the force of her personality. She moved the imperial capital to Hokkaido, and painted her face like the Ainu. Now she trained a new generation of ninja to promote justice through the land.

“I know what they do. They sabotage, undermine, ruin. Like I said, nothing good.”

“Come on, they must be able to save people's lives, or prevent disasters.”

Suzuka ddidn't seem impressed by the examples provided.

“You need to break something, send an engineer. Persuade an important person, a diplomat. Or if someone just needs to be removed, you send an assassin.” She doesn't smile.

“But Agent Patel is all those things! Maybe it would help if you watched the first movie to get her backstory.”

Later that night, while Gene snored away, and the Outlaw Star was very quiet, Suzuka accessed her Ultra Class A Network to review potential assignments. There was only one, for Planet Tenrei.

An infiltration to an elite party being held at a members-only honey-moon water-park casino. She was to attend as the plus one to some other contracted associate of her employer. The target was a renegade mad-scientist with a pernicious new love potion ready to unleash on the unwitting population of the getaway world. A custom-made bathing suit would be provided to her an hour before the party.

Suzuka frowned.

“You've got to be kidding me...”


End file.
